"Clerks III": review

The Clerks movies occupy a weird space in my head. There are three of them, now, with 2022's "Clerks III" being the swan song for the trilogy. All three were directed by Kevin Smith, who appears in these films as Silent Bob, a dude who usually ends up breaking his silence and saying something. I say "weird space" because all three movies have that low-budget feel and use actors who are mediocre at best, uttering lines that are self-consciously writerly, and aiming for comic moments that often come off as awkward misfires—cringe-y and cute at the same time. A sort of winsome lameness is the hallmark of the typical Kevin Smith film. As I've noted many times before, Kevin Smith, like his hero George Lucas, isn't a very demanding director: he rarely pushes his actors to their limits, although he does evoke some raw emotion in this movie. "Clerks III" stars Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson as the by-now-iconic Dante and Randal, along with Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith as the equally iconic Jay and Silent Bob. Along for the ride, and returning to previous roles, are Rosario Dawson as Becky (Dante's wife) and Trevor Fehrman as Elias, one of the Mooby employees from "Clerks II."

The new story takes place fifteen years after the events of "Clerks II." Dante and Randal own and manage their Quick Stop convenience store. As always, there are the occasional rooftop hockey games with the locals, and the duo of Jay and Silent Bob hang out next door, where they own a legal cannabis shop. The movie begins with a slow pan across the Quick Stop cashier's counter, revealing that Becky died in 2006. Later in the film, we learn she was killed, while pregnant, by a drunk driver. The plot kicks into gear when Randal, having lived an unhealthy lifestyle, suffers a severe heart attack and gets whisked to the hospital, where he learns from a sassy doctor (Amy Sedaris) that he has only a 20% chance of surviving. Randal does survive, though, and the doctor warns friend Dante that Randal will suffer from depression, so Dante needs to keep Randal's spirits up. The doctor then looks at Dante and says that he needs to watch his own health, too, because he's out of shape and eating the same diet Randal was. Randal is thoughtful after his heart attack, but he discovers a sense of purpose when he decides, based on a casual remark by Dante, to make a movie about his life. The rest of "Clerks III" is about what happens as Randal and Dante try to scrape together funds, gather a cast of locals, and make this movie. The end result of these efforts is essentially the very first "Clerks" movie. Dante, reluctantly in the role of producer for Randal's film, deals with his own ongoing grief and anxiety, with Becky appearing to him in those moments as a ghostly, comforting presence. The film takes an emotional left turn as tensions build toward the film's end, and the ending really should be left unspoiled.

Unsurprisingly, I came away from this latest Kevin Smith effort thinking the movie was a mixed bag. It does the usual fan-service thing of involving plenty of big stars in cameo roles: we get the likes of Danny Trejo, Ben Affleck, Kate Micucci, Fred Armisen, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Melissa Benoist, and Anthony Michael Hall. The regular Kevin Smith tropes are there, like bong-smoking, sacrilegious humor, Star Wars geekery, and dick jokes. Most of the cast of the first movie come back, and it was simultaneously delightful and depressing to see so many familiar faces, now so much older (especially time-ravaged are Jason Mewes and Marilyn Ghigliotti, who played Veronica, Dante's 37-blowjob girlfriend in the first movie). There were jokes that made me crack a smile and even laugh; there were other jokes that fell flat but still landed in the winsome lameness category. There were some glaring story-logic issues* that appeared at the very end, but since the movie is obviously not meant to be taken too seriously or too literally, I suppose I could let those problems slide. Overall, the movie continues its meditation on Dante and Randal's friendship, and the ending has a finality to it that guarantees there will be no more Clerks movies after this one.

Other critics were quick to note the autobiographical nature of "Clerks III": director Kevin Smith had suffered a severe heart attack in 2018, which is one reason why "Clerks III" is so heart-attack-heavy. Health scares can bring a sense of crisis and purpose to one's life (as I know well), so Randal's character arc is a reflection of Smith's own life. I appreciate the weirdly meta idea of having the characters in "Clerks III" eventually re-create the first "Clerks." On the other hand, it was a bit depressing to see how much older everyone had become, but I guess that's life.

Do I recommend the movie? I guess I do, but it's going to be funnier if you're a devout Kevin Smith fan. I'm a bit of a fan and a bit of a skeptic (and for the purposes of this review, I'm trying not to take Kevin Smith's woke-idiot politics into consideration), so I might not be the primary target demographic for "Clerks III." The movie is a meditation on a long-standing friendship, not to mention a last-hurrah romp through Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse (View Askew is Smith's production company, and Smith's movies often include references to other movies he's made in that fictional universe). It's not the best-written or best-acted film in the world, and it helps if you have an appreciation for stoner humor, but ultimately, "Clerks III" was more good than it was bad. You have my cautious recommendation.

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*This gets into slightly spoilery territory, but two of those issues were: (1) When did Randall have time to finish and edit his movie together? (2) How does the movie end up showing Dante's and Randall's younger selves? I think I know one possible answer to the second question, but revealing that answer here would again take us into spoiler territory.